Angela Burns: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to move the Conservative amendment, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. The motion tabled by Plaid is clearly politically motivated and designed to scaremonger about the future of our NHS. For the avoidance of doubt, my party wholeheartedly believes in the Welsh NHS being kept in public hands. In fact, I believe every party in this Assembly...
Angela Burns: 8. What is the Welsh Government doing to promote staff well-being within the Welsh public sector? OAQ(5)0615(FM)
Angela Burns: Good afternoon, First Minister.
Angela Burns: You will be aware that almost 8,000 staff members of the NHS in Wales were affected by anxiety, stress, depression, and a number of other psychiatric illnesses, in the year 2015-16, and the trend appears to be the same going forward. Aneurin Bevan Local Health Board created and filled the post of head of employee well-being, and Adrian Neal and his colleagues are making great strides forward...
Angela Burns: Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very grateful to the Government for bringing forward this incredibly interesting topic, and I formally move the amendment tabled in the name of Paul Davies. We on this side of the Chamber support the general principles of this debate, and we’ve brought forward our amendment because we believe that social prescribing has no firm definition, a point...
Angela Burns: Will you take an intervention?
Angela Burns: Thank you. I was just rather hoping that in your role as chair of that cross-party group, you might also perhaps look at the role of art and music therapy for younger people, because at the stage of their life where they are, they need a course correction very often. A lot of them are starting to walk down a poor mental health route for all sorts of reasons, and there is a lot of evidence out...
Angela Burns: 4. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline the Welsh Government’s plans to reduce littering? OAQ(5)0146(ERA)
Angela Burns: It is good to see you back and I know that, like me, you and most of the other Assembly Members here will have received many constituent representations over concerns with littering, dog mess and fly-tipping, and of course it’s vital for public health, and particularly in areas that rely on tourism, that we have clean, safe and pleasant streets to walk in. Pembrokeshire has recently been...
Angela Burns: First Minister, the ‘Making Sense’ report was published in tandem with the Making Sense initiative, which is supported by the High Needs Collaborative and the Wales Observatory on Human Rights of Children and Young People. This report highlighted that, for many young people, support for the transition into adult services is non-existent. In fact, young people say that they are...
Angela Burns: Thank you for your statement, Minister. Genomics has enabled groundbreaking advances in research and medicinal applications, and I believe holds an enormous hope for us all in the future. We all know of the crisis facing humans, because of the overuse of antibiotics and the ever-mutating bacteria that produce the superbugs that seem to survive all. Finding alternatives for the treatment of...
Angela Burns: First Minister, radium-223 is a vital tool in fighting stage 4 prostate cancer. It is National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved and has been implemented, I think via the new treatment fund, so far in north Wales. However, there is real drag here in the south. Neither Velindre hospital nor Singleton are yet ready to offer this. It is a nuclear medicine so it does require...
Angela Burns: Good afternoon, leader of the house. May I ask you to beseech the Cabinet Secretary for health and social services to bring the statement back to the Chamber on school nurses that was postponed a fortnight ago? School nurses play an important role in Welsh schools, not just dealing with minor injuries, but also offering pastoral advice and general health information. A number of professionals...
Angela Burns: Diolch, Llywydd. Of course, Cabinet Secretary, one of the ways that we can attract more people into medicine is by ensuring that people have the opportunity to have a good work-life balance, and I’m quite sure that you will agree with me about the importance of ensuring good work-life balance for all workers in the NHS—a very stressful job at the best of times. The recent undertaking to...
Angela Burns: That’s great news. The doctors have been saying this and the undergraduates have been saying this now for a number of years. So, I really hope that, this time, they are heard and those actions are taken. You mentioned, of course, that doctors like to move around. I understand that it’s very difficult to track doctors who want to take a break or leave their training and decide to, perhaps...
Angela Burns: I know that you are going to be starting the nurse recruitment drive as well. I think the thing is that we can’t do these in a linear order—we have to do them all in tandem because we have enormous gaps throughout the NHS. Recent statistics are very clear that we are only filling 49 per cent of placements for core medical training. We are running out of doctors in our NHS and they are...
Angela Burns: This is really great news. It’s very positive, and the daily mile is a very useful tool. However, let’s be frank, we’ve had endless debates in this Chamber about the risk of obesity, about how it’s becoming the public health challenge of the future, about all of the consequences of being too overweight for people, especially in their later life, and where we’ve got to stop it is...
Angela Burns: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the commercial access deal struck between NHS Wales and Roche, which will mean that breast cancer patients in Wales can access the Kadcyla drug? TAQ(5)0192(HWS)
Angela Burns: Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Your decision to enable access to Kadcyla is a welcome development, and I would like to pay tribute to all the campaigners throughout the UK who have fought for so long to have access to this life-extending drug. This targeted therapy is vital for those who have certain HER2-positive breast cancers, but it originally came with a very high financial cost, and we...
Angela Burns: First Minister, the recent Mid and West Wales Health and Social Care Regional Collaborative statement on services for older people makes for concerning reading. The population of the Hywel Dda university health board area already has a higher proportion of older people than the Wales average, and that already higher proportion is predicted to increase dramatically in the coming years. And yet...
